THE RAVEN.
"The Raven," by Edgar Allan Poe (1809-49), is placed here because so
many college men speak of it at once as the great poem of their
boyhood. The poem caught me when a child by its refrain and weird
picturesqueness. It has never outgrown its mechanical charm.
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore--
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door"
'Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door--
Only this, and nothing more."
Ah! distinctly I remember, it was in the bleak December,
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor;
Eagerly I wished the morrow; vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow--sorrow for the lost Lenore--
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore--
Nameless here for evermore.
And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Thrilled me--filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;
So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating,
"'Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door--
Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door:
This it is, and nothing more.
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